Boston--“The myth of gay and
lesbian affluence is just that--a myth,”
says a study published March 20 by the
Williams Institute.

The study, titled “Poverty in the Lesbian,
Gay, and Bisexual Community” is not
the first to challenge the myth of gay
and lesbian affluence. But it is the
most complete, and the first to use
actual census data and other well-regarded
studies to track family growth and health
indicators.

It is also the first to analyze the
causes and consequences of poverty among
gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

“Lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals
are as likely to be poor as are heterosexuals,
while gay and lesbian couple households,
after adjusting for the factors that
help explain poverty, are more likely
to be poor than married heterosexual
couple households,” the study says.

“Further, poverty rates of children
in gay and lesbian couple households
are strikingly high,” it continues.

The Williams Institute is a think tank
that studies sexual orientation law
and policy, connected to the University
of California Los Angeles Law School.

The perception of gay affluence was
largely created in the 1990s by marketing
companies seeking to cultivate gay commerce
opportunities. With no census data available,
the marketing researchers studied groups
likely to be well off, like Human Rights
Campaign membership lists, magazine
subscribers and people who used gay
travel agencies.

Though always suspect, those surveys
were rarely challenged because the belief
that gay and lesbian people had discretionary
income to spend made it easier for groups
and events like Pride festivals to find
corporate sponsors. Some also believed
that the perception bred political influence.

Anti-gay groups, however, have used
the same information to say that LGBT
people are not discriminated against
and do not need to be protected.

Last May, Citizens for Community Values
spokespersons David Miller and Barry
Sheetz testified before the Ohio Senate
that the Equal Housing and Employment
Act was unnecessary because gays and
lesbians are more likely to be employed
than heterosexuals, have higher incomes,
and are more likely to hold professional
or management level jobs--exactly the
perception the marketers created.

The Williams study concludes that among
the factors contributing to poverty
among gays and lesbians are “vulnerability
to employment discrimination, lack of
access to marriage, higher rates of
being uninsured, less family support,
or family conflict over coming out.”

The study found that gay and lesbian
couple families are significantly more
likely to be poor than are heterosexual
married couple families; lesbian couples
and their families are much more likely
to be poor than heterosexual couples
and their families; and children in
gay and lesbian couple households have
poverty rates twice those of children
in heterosexual married couple households.

“Within the LGB population, several
groups are much more likely to be poor
than others. African American people
in same-sex couples and same-sex couples
who live in rural areas are much more
likely to be poor than white or urban
same-sex couples,” the findings continue.

The study also finds that gays and
lesbians, especially with families,
are more likely to receive government
assistance than heterosexuals.

“In general, lesbian couples have much
higher poverty rates than either different-sex
couples or gay male couples. Lesbians
who are 65 or older are twice as likely
to be poor as heterosexual married couples,”
the study found.

Children of same-sex couples are twice
as likely to be poor as children of
married couples, according to the study.
One in five children under 18 living
in a same-sex couple family is poor
compared to one in ten in opposite-sex
married couple households.

African-American same-sex couples,
according to the Williams Institute,
are significantly more likely to be
poor than their married heterosexual
counterparts and roughly three times
more likely to live in poverty than
white same-sex couples.

Gays and lesbians living in rural areas
are twice as likely to live in poverty
than those in metropolitan areas.

Across most characteristics, however,
married heterosexual couples have higher
poverty rates than do gay men in coupled
households. The exceptions in which
gay male poverty is higher include gay
couples with a black partner, those
with one partner out of the labor force,
and those with children under the age
of 18 in the household.

“Those living in lesbian-partnered
families almost always have higher poverty
rates than those in heterosexual married
partnered families,” the study continues.

The authors conclude that “the misleading
myth of affluence steers policymakers,
community organizations, service providers,
and the media away from fully understanding
poverty among LGBT people or even imagining
that poor LGBT people exist.”

The study recommends the promotion
of policies and laws promoting equal
pay for women and passage of laws that
prohibit discrimination on the basis
of sexual orientation.

It also says more study of lesbian
and gay people is needed with more attention
paid to how lesbians and gays and their
families actually live. This is especially
important in the design of the social
safety net and services, which often
miss these people.

The authors also call for marriage
equality, which brings economic benefits
for couples.

“A cornerstone of current conservative
poverty policy is ‘marriage promotion,’ ”
the authors note. “This orientation
is driven by a desire to reduce people’s
use of public supports, as opposed to
a goal of poverty reduction. The policy
would best be called ‘heterosexual marriage
promotion,’ as the irony of this policy
is no doubt well understood by gay and
lesbian families.”

The current study does not look at
transgender people.

“Because no representative data exist
for transgender people, the report does
not analyze poverty in that community,”
said the institute. “Previous Williams
Institute studies, however, found that
large proportions of transgender people
report very low incomes, which suggest
that poverty is also a major concern
for transgender people.”

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